Ink jet printers are well known. One common type of ink jet printer uses a replaceable print cartridge that is loaded into a scanning carriage in an ink jet printer. The scanning carriage scans across a paper sheet to print a swath of ink on the sheet, using a print head on the cartridge.
Prior art Japan Application No. 03-285746, filed Oct. 5, 1991 and published Apr. 20, 1993 (Publication No. 05-096744), discloses a print cartridge, which in one embodiment has a porous ink-absorbent, such as a sponge, and a print head in ink communication with the porous ink-absorbent. The print cartridge is refilled with the print ink by vertically lowering an ink supply into a nest in the print cartridge. An ink conduit needle erect at the bottom of the nest vertically pierces a septum at the bottom of the ink supply. This enables the print ink to flow from the ink supply to the porous ink-absorbent via a capillary tube in the print cartridge.
Prior art U.S. Pat. No. 5,980,032 issued Nov. 9, 1999 discloses an ink jet printer including a replaceable print cartridge which is vertically lowered into a stall on the scanning carriage. When the print cartridge is pushed into the stall, an ink conduit needle on the cartridge vertically pierces an upstanding septum on the scanning carriage. This allows a flexible ink delivery tube interconnecting the septum and a stationary ink supply source separate from the scanning carriage to flow the print ink to the print cartridge.